Truth

I told him

on the first visit he made to his doctor

in years, I told him,

“You don’t have youth on your side

anymore." He stared, nodded

back 

to the memory

of his grandfather and

a generation of stoic

hard work, black coffee and

calluses, knowing the 

truth, his failing

body, but still spinning

his lie. I told him,

“If you don’t slow down,

something, I swear something," I told him, 

"something will stop you, 

cold.”

In my inbox on a rainy Monday:

68 yo male, admitted to the ER on a Thursday,

diffuse abdominal pain, weight loss,

suspect pancreatic cancer

with mets to the liver.

I never wanted to be right.